Mother's Testament: 5 The scent of the home country

In Koktal Gyuli and Tadzhigul again shared a house, and were well used to helping one another. Alahan, with her mother and her children, also managed to make the move. Things were a little easier here, as they were allowed to see their relatives and friends.

Tadzhigul’s parents and relatives began to visit her and bring food. When they learned from their daughter how Gyuli had helped her and the children, they vowed to pray for her good health every day.

Gyuli’s sister Maysimyam also soon came to Koktal together with her elder son Tursun. She gasped when she saw how Gyuli had aged and grown thin over the past two years. The two sisters held each other and wept for a long time.

‘Well, the worst is behind us,’ said Maysimyam eventually. ‘At least the children are healthy. And life in the village is slowly getting back to normal as well.’

Gyuli asked her about old Hadzhyar.

‘She’s still living in your house,’ said Maysimyam. ‘She’s planted the garden and is keeping chickens. My sons Tursun and Turgan built her a chicken coop. She’s getting quite old, but she’s still coping by herself.’

‘How is she managing with the animals?’

‘After you were sent away, people from the government came and announced that all animals owned by enemies of the people now belonged to the kolkhoz. We wept and made a fuss and eventually persuaded them to let us keep the calf. It turned out to be a heifer. She calved just a few days ago. Hadzhyar-ana does not have the strength to milk her, so Turgan does it. And so, thank God, we’re alive and well. And now, you tell me about your ordeals.’

‘What haven’t I gone through in these two years?’ said Gyuli quietly. ‘Look at me and you’ll see. I lived only for the children and worked round the clock to put bread on the table. I endured it all for the hope of coming home.’ Tears were running down her cheeks.

           

Now Selimyam and Saniyam came rushing and shouting into the house and threw their arms around their aunt. Little Yadikar huddled up to his mother and watched Maysimyam in silence.

Tursun picked Yadikar up and exclaimed. ‘Well, well, Yadikar, what a big dzhigit you’ve become already!’

Maysimyam meanwhile was doting on the girls. ‘My my, mama’s little helpers, how you’ve grown!’ She kissed and hugged them repeatedly.

Tadzhigul offered them all tea. They sat down at the table, talking excitedly, and their anxiety faded. The two sisters kept looking at each other and talked unceasingly. Maysimyam and her son spent the night with Gyuli and returned home next morning.

Gyuli threw herself into work of all kinds in Koktal to provide for the children. At the same time she also applied in writing to all manner of official posts for permission to return home; she longed to go back to the little house she and Tair had built and where they had been happy. Another year passed. Then, in springtime, the three exiled families were granted permission to return home. The women and their children joyfully loaded up a truck and by evening they were back in Bolshoy Chigan. Old Rozihan lifted up her wrinkled hands and exclaimed: ‘Oh, my Allah, thank you! We’ve come home alive. There is nothing else for us to wish for!’

The sentiment that there is no place like home is surely true for most people if not all, and the older a person gets, the more he or she appreciates it. Longing for home is most poignant for those who are forced to remain far away. And that evening the three returning families would be able to breathe deeply the air of their native village and inhale the aroma of the food they had known since they were children. By the time they arrived, however, it was growing dark. They would have to wait until the next day before they could take a look around the village to see what had changed.

Gyuli jumped down, took some of the sacks containing their belongings and started down the familiar little path to her house. Behind her rushed Selimyam and Saniyam, all the while outrunning each other and gripped by an irrepressible joy. They were the first to burst into the yard, and began trying to outdo each other in banging on the door. Inside, old Hadzhyar had dozed off. She got up and came to the door, worried by the unexpected arrival. Seeing the two girls, however, she stood, overcome, unable to believe her eyes. With shaking hands she pulled them to her. ‘O my Maker! Is this really you?’

Now Gyuli caught up and also embraced the old woman. ‘Will you have us back, my dear?’ She was smiling and weeping at the same time. ‘We’ve come home!’

Hadzhyar-ana came to her senses and began fussing about and chattering. ‘Well I thought I’d die without seeing you again. But here you are at last! My little nanny-goats have come home. O Allah! How long these three years have been!’

The excited group went inside. Hadzhyar sighed deeply when she saw how dark and thin Gyuli had become, and even wept a little out of pity for her. Then she began fussing again and put everything on the table that she had managed to gather and preserve: milk, cream, curd and kurt.

Soon the whole family was sitting and drinking hot, fragrant tea. They looked at each other over and over, smiling with happiness. Selimyam and Saniyam laughed and ran from room to room. Yadikar tried to run along after his sisters, but fell, then got up and got back to running after them. Gyuli looked round at the familiar walls, where every corner and every detail reminded her of her youth and her love, of Tair’s tender glances and of the birth of her children. Soon, however, their warmth and happiness brought on tiredness and they began to fall asleep. Their faces were softened by hope and joy, and they were protected in their sleep by their own home.

           

Early next morning Gyuli went out into the yard. Greedily she gulped in the cool fresh air of her home village. She paced about the yard, looking at everything closely. The crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs, the birdsong and the smell of smoke from the chimney in the morning silence gave the village a homely feel and heightened her sense of relief. She sat down on a bench in the arbour and remembered her father’s words: ‘Love the land where you were born. Value everything, from the sky to the smallest blade of grass. Respect all people, and obey your father and mother, your husband and your relatives.’ She wondered where her parents were now. Were they even alive?

As Gyuli sat there deep in thought, the old woman came out of the house with the kumgan for performing her ablutions. ‘You’re up early, daughter… Couldn’t you sleep?’

‘I slept soundly in my own house,’ smiled Gyuli. ‘But now I can’t get enough of this fresh air’.

‘The old people say: “In your own home the heart rejoices and the feet are free”. I’ve planted pumpkin and convolvulus around the edge of the shed, and on the other side of the ditch I’ve put marigolds.’ Hadzhyar-ana proudly showed Gyuli her handiwork.

Gyuli washed herself, then went to the cowshed, bucket in hand. Just then Maysimyam’s son Turgan ran into the yard.

           

‘I’ll do the milking for you, apa!’ he called out. When he saw Gyuli, the boy stopped and threw up his hands. ‘Why, kichik-apa! When did you get here?’ He ran to hug her. ‘I’ll tell mother, and then I’ll take your cow out to the herd.’ He darted away.

Gyuli woke her daughters. No sooner had they put away their bedding and put the table in place when Kurvan-aka arrived with Maysimyam and their children. They all embraced and began smiling and gazing at one another. Eventually they settled down. Kurvan-aka, sitting in the place of honour, glanced at Gyuli, then at her children, and said: ‘You’ve suffered a lot while you were away. Still, true heroes that you are, you held out through it all and have made it safely home. You should spend some time settling in and recovering – take ten days to rest – and then you will have to join the women working in the fields. We’re at our busiest time at the moment. I’ll tell the brigadir.’

Gyuli nodded gratefully. ‘There is only one thing I ask of God, which is that our children never have to face such evil times as we had to undergo.’

Rumours of the return of the three families sent to Chilik now spread all through the village. Gyuli’s friends came by to welcome her home and to hear her tales of life in exile.

After just a couple of days Gyuli started working, filling in the places where the plasterwork had come away with a mixture of wet clay, planting vegetables in the garden and sowing seeds for flowers. Old Hadzhyar warmed herself in the sun and admired her hard-working daughter. ‘The old people say that work loves the young,’ she said. ‘Gyuli, when you came back, happiness returned here. And everything started to shine, in the house and in the yard.’

‘And thank you, ana, for looking after the house so well,’ Gyuli replied. ‘You’ve taken good care of it for these three years. Thank you a thousand times, and may you live for ever!’

‘Well, in the meantime, Rihanbuvi and her daughter Saram and her children were living in my own house,’ said Hadzhyar-ana. But back in the spring one of the walls fell in. My house got damp all through and has completely collapsed.’

‘Don’t worry about that. You’ll come and live with us, won’t you? You’re like my own mother to me, after all.’

‘Hmmm. Once I was considered to be the hardest-working labourer in the village, but look how decrepit I’ve become.’ Hadzhyar-ana looked at her wrinkled hands.

Gyuli stroked the old woman’s grey hair. ‘Ana, you can grow old with dignity if you stay with us. You’ve never been a burden to anyone and you help other people out. Everybody still looks up to you today.’ She kissed the old woman repeatedly.

From the hen-house came the voices of Selimyam and Saniyam: ‘Moma, we’ve given the chickens their grain. They’re all pecking at it, but the white broody one won’t move.’

‘Leave the white hen alone. She’s hatching her eggs,’ warned Hadzhyar. ‘When she’s ready she’ll get up by herself and will eat and drink.’

           

The old woman felt lightness in her heart. God had not granted her children of her own, and yet, in her twilight years, she had been given these wonderful children. She was grateful to Gyuli for what she had said and felt happy.

‘Gyuli, Maysimyam’s invited us for tea today,’ she reminded her daughter, then bustled happily off to the chicken coop.

Maysimyam served her long-awaited visitors with large flatbreads fried in butter with onion and poured out fragrant aktyan-chay. Everything showed that her home life was falling into place. Now that Kurvan-aka had assumed his function of tractor-driver and worked by the sweat of his brow, the kolkhoz management had begun to appreciate him. Yet he always remained his old self: he was taciturn, even-tempered, open and direct. Life had not indulged him. When he had been a boy Kurvan had had to give up school in order to help his parents. He respected educated people and did everything to enable his sons to continue their education in Zharkent once they finished school. ‘Go on studying,’ he would say to his sons Tursun and Turgan, ‘or you’ll end up like me, breathing dust and overburdening your back.’

When they were not studying, his sons joined the other young people working in the fields or digging aryks. In the villages, children as young as ten would go out to help the adults. When Tursun finished school, Kurvan-aka said to him: ‘Balam, there’s a pedagogical college in Zharkent. You should go there and train to be a teacher – and then you will be respected. Teaching children is sacred work.’ The son’s wishes coincided with the father’s desire, and Tursun entered the college. His parents were very pleased and his sisters, anxious not to be left behind by their brothers, also did well at school.

Gyuli delighted in hearing this news and was pleased for her sister and brother-in-law. ‘I wish I could educate my children too, so that they could be of service to others,’ she said wistfully.

‘You can do that now, Gyuli,’ said Kurvan-aka. ‘There’s been a decree that from now on, “children are not answerable for the deeds of their fathers”. Sepiyam’s teacher told us about it. So now your girls are allowed to go to school.’

Gyuli felt her spirits rise. Then Hadzhyar also broke into a smile. Meanwhile Kurvan-aka went on unhurriedly. ‘It’s been hard for us as well. We didn’t manage to bring in the cotton in the autumn, so had to go out and pick it in the snow. The villagers were out there knee-deep in snow, half-clothed and without shoes, working their fingers to the bone. A lot of them died as a result. But as of this year – at last – we won’t be sowing cotton. Let them grow it where it’s warmer. We’re changing over to wheat, oats and maize. This will be a massive relief for everyone.’

Next morning Gyuli cleaned out the cowshed and then set to moulding wet dung bricks on the wall, ready to dry out in the sun. While she was doing this, Shavdun rode up to her fence on his horse and announced: ‘From today you will take your ketmen and go out to the fields. Our women are digging the aryks and irrigating the wheat.’ He then turned his horse abruptly and rode off.

Shavdun looked haggard and was covered in dust. He had tried to avoid eye contact with Gyuli. Clearly, she thought, he had not recovered after his wife’s death. Meanwhile Gyuli was secretly pleased to have been called to join the work brigade; she longed to be part of the communal work again and to be alongside her friends.

‘Very good, my dear,’ nodded Hadzhyar when she heard about Shavdun’s order. ‘If they’ve called you, then go and work. I’ll look after the house and the children.’

Gyuli told Selimyam and Saniyam to keep a close watch on Yadikar. He was a playful and curious little boy. His mother tied some lunch up for herself in a shawl, threw her ketmen over her shoulder and went out into the road. Some of her friends were already coming towards her: Mervanam, Mariyam, Zaynaphan and other women. They thrilled to see Gyuli join them, and they chattered cheerfully as they walked, scarcely noticing when they arrived at the work site.

Out in the field, all was a frenzy of brightness and colour and the air was laden with the scent of flowers. This multi-coloured world was bewitching and stirring to the soul. How they loved these places! They could never get enough of admiring the beauty here. These vast fields, these trees with their spreading crowns of branches. Gyuli kept seeming to see Tair, as though he were somewhere beside her…

Here, working again alongside her friends as they laughed, joked and sang, Gyuli felt her heart, long frozen, begin to warm through. Once more the days rushed by, barely noticed, and the horrors of the past years gradually began to fade. One Friday, however, Gyuli had a bad dream. She woke up in the night, shaken, and could not get back to sleep before morning. Inside her she sensed trouble. She did not, however, mention it to anybody.

* * *

‘So what was her dream about?’ asked Ruth with concern.

‘I’ll tell you about that later on,’ smiled Mehriban. She was pleased that Ruth was happy to go on listening.